Natra present at PLMA Amsterdam
On the 16th and 17th of May, Natra was present at the PLMA’s World of Private Label trade fair held in Amsterdam (Netherlands). This trade fair, organised by the Private Label Manufacturers Association, is the main annual meeting point for large-scale European distribution where retail sellers and manufacturers in the food sector come together.
At this edition, more than 2,500 exhibiting companies came together in the RAI Exhibition Centre in the Dutch capital, among them Natra with a stand in the Spanish hall.
During the two days that the trade fair lasted, more than 14,000 buyers and visitors from 115 countries visited the exhibition venue. “As each year, the PLMA trade fair in Amsterdam is a place to meet with our clients from private brands; a place where the volume and quality of the visits continues to be a highlight” said Idoia Murillo, a member of the marketing and communication team at Natra.
The theme this year, “Helping consumers”, underscored the value and quality that retail sellers offer by means of their branded distribution products. According to the most recent market share studies from Nielsen, consumers are aware of this and are purchasing more products from retailer-branded products.
“We have seen our clients’ concern about and interest in innovative products, such as origin chocolate, as well as the combination of flavours with more exotic fruits in bars of chocolate. We can say that the trade fair has been a success in that we will continue working on new projects with both present and future clients” said Josune Madrigal, Key Account Manager for the category ‘bars’.
Natra presents their latest innovations at the 2017 ISM trade fair
The ISM trade fair is the most significant international gathering in the confectionary industry. The Spanish multinational company is following the market’s trends in its product innovations: convenience for the countlines category, sustainability for spreads, and Premium for the Belgian specialities.
Natra, the multinational company dedicated to production of chocolate and cocoa-derivative products, was present at the ISM trade fair between the 29th of January and the 1st of February in Cologne (Germany). The ISM is the largest international trade fair for confectionary products and this, the 74th event, brought together 1648 exhibitors from 68 countries.
Valentín Hernandez-Palacián, Natra’s communications manager, remarked that “for us, this trade fair represents a launch pad for the new year, where we can take the sector’s pulse. As in other years, we have brought several of our innovations geared towards the market’s new trends to this event and the response has been very positive, we are very happy“.
Organic products
One of Natra’s values is sustainability, something that can be applied to the development of new products. Consumers are paying increasingly more attention to the origin and quality of the ingredients, we are better informed nowadays and socially more responsible.
In order to meet this food trend, Natra is putting forward a line of organic creamy spread in three flavours: hazelnut, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate.
Convenience
Natra puts its consumer’s requirements at the centre of all their new products, as they look for an end product ready to be eaten in convenient and portable packaging.
This is why Natra brought its traditional small bars in a new packaging to the trade fair: boxes of ten units of individually wrapped bars. A product that is easy to carry and perfect for sharing. In 2017 you will find Caramel Smooth, Hurry’up, and Peanut Tasty in this format.
Premium
Natra’s Belgian specialities stand out because of their Premium categorisation. The Malle plant continues to innovate different packaging formats and new flavours: truffles with a coconut flavour with biscuit pieces, caramel…
There is no doubt, however, that the product that garnered most attention from visitors to Natra’s stand were the spheres with a pearly finish. This product is produced in Natra Jacali, another production plant that Natra has sited in Belgium. This product is presented in a triangular box with 15 pieces of assorted truffle with this velvety finish. ‘A pleasure for the eyes and the palate’, as one of the trade fair’s visitors remarked.
Industrial product
Natra’s industrial product plant located in Valencia has also put forward innovations in many of the product families in which it specialises. Visitors to the stand were able to get to know the Origin Cocoa Pastes, selected because of their carefully defined organoleptic profiles, which give the chocolate notes of flavour and scents in line with emerging trends in many similar products. In this way, Natra can count on the industrial produce to respond to new niches created by more demanding customers who have expectations of new and distinctive products.
About Natra
Natra is a multinational company which originated in Spain which manufactures chocolate and products derived from cocoa. The company has more than 1100 employees around the world and six specialised centres of production in Spain, Belgium, France, and Canada.
Natra has two type of products: consumer products (countlines, Belgian specialties, tablets, and spreads) and industrial products (cocoa derivatives, mainly cocoa powder and butter, and industrial chocolate for food industry).
Contact for more information:
ATREVIA – Ainara Beato
Tel: 944 132 068 – 678 441 773
Natra confirms its presence at the ISM International Fair 2017
Natra, a multinational company dedicated to the manufacture of chocolate and cocoa derivatives, has confirmed its attendance at the world’s largest sweets and snacks trade fair —ISM 2017—, where it will exhibit its new product line for 2017.
The fair will takes place from January 29 to February 1 in Cologne (Germany), and is considered the most important business and communication platform in the sector. For this reason, Natra has been attending this unmissable event for over 30 years.
For the duration of the four-day fair, Natra’s 170m2 stand will serve as a meeting point for both current and potential clients.
In addition to the Natra’s current product catalogue, the company will also present and gather first impressions of their new products and formats designed for 2017. Natra’s line of innovation for 2017 responds to current market trends in different product categories: “on the go” and “convenience” in the countlines category, “sustainability” and “healthy” in the spreads category, and “premium” in Belgian Specialties category.
In terms of industrial goods, Natra is also inspired by emerging worldwide trends. Cocoa is still used, to a greater or lesser extent, as an ingredient in the wide range of products known as Confectionery. “This drives our R&D team to constantly research and test new products”, states Carmen Martínez, Industry Sales Director. Continuous innovation enables Natra to work dynamically with all its clients, constantly offering new flavours and applications to consumers, which is a clear example of growth in this sector.
It is worth highlighting that the last edition of the trade fair saw attendance records broken with 38,500 visitors coming from some 146 countries; a very positive outcome which also reflected in Natra’s stand.
About Natra
Natra is a multinational company which originated in Spain which manufactures chocolate and products derived from cocoa. The company has more than 1100 employees around the world and six specialised centres of production in Spain, Belgium, France, and Canada.
Natra has two type of products: consumer products (countlines, Belgian specialties, tablets, and spreads) and industrial products (cocoa derivatives, mainly cocoa powder and butter, and industrial chocolate for food industry).
Contact for more information:
ATREVIA – Ainara Beato
Tel: 944 132 068 – 678 441 773
Natra works with the Amigó Foundation
For the fifth consecutive year, Natra has lent its support to a project that the Amigó Foundation has developed in Côte d’Ivoire, which offers educational support to children at risk of social exclusion.
The donation will provide economic support to the Amigo Doumé Centre, located in the country’s capital city, which welcomes homeless and abused children, orphans, child victims of conflict, and child victims of exploitation, offering them social and educational support, An education focused around learning a trade, using workshops and basic lessons regarding literacy and learning for life.
The idea of this partnership was born six years ago, during the Christmas season in 2011. Thousands of seasonal greeting cards were sent to clients and suppliers each year, a tradition that generated an excessive and unnecessary paper consumption. Since then, Natra sends more than 5,000 digital greeting cards each year, foregoing the need to produce and post so many cards, instead repurposing that budget for charitable purposes in Côte d’Ivoire, which is the origin for the majority of the cocoa used by Natra in the manufacturing of its products.
The AMIGÓ Foundation, founded in 1996, aims to help children and teenagers who encounter problems. This Foundation has a presence in 21 countries throughout America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Natra has a positive view of its time spent at the PLMA Trade Show in Chicago
In total, the trade show housed 1,300 exhibiting companies from 40 different countries and welcomed more than 10,000 professionals from the sector. It is an event that has served as a meeting point for buyers of private labels, retailers, and wholesalers, where it is possible to discover a wide range of foods, snacks, and drinks, as well as products for the home and kitchen, or even health and beauty products.
Natra, who made the most of the trade show to exhibit their latest products, had a team of eight people and a dedicated stand of 30 square metres measure. Following two days of intense work, the chocolate and cocoa-derivative company has judged the results achieved at this show to be ‘very positive’ and, in the words of the Belgian Specialties Sales Director, Iñaki Abalia: ‘it is of strategic importance for the American market and of strategic importance for Natra and its internationalisation’.
The products which excited most interest, in terms of requests from guests who approached the stand, were firstly the spreadable creams, and secondly the traditional Belgian specialities, as well as the small Doypack-packaged bars and chocolate bars.
In terms of a visitor profile, Natra welcomed the most clients and potential clients from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and Brazil, all countries in which Natra currently markets its products.
As well as visiting PLMA, Natra was also present at Yummex 2016, held between the 7th and the 9th of November in Dubai, and at SIAL (Salon International de l’Alimentation), held from the 16th to the 20th of October in Paris, where it was warmly welcomed by the public.
About Natra
Natra is a multinational company which originated in Spain which manufactures chocolate and products derived from cocoa. The company has more than 1100 employees around the world and six specialised centres of production in Spain, Belgium, France, and Canada.
Natra has two classes of product: consumer products (bars of chocolate, chocolates, and Belgian truffles, chocolate slabs, and spreads) and industrial products (supplying products derived from cocoa, mainly cocoa powder and butter, and chocolate topping for the international food industry).
Natra presents at YUMMEX in Dubai
Natra was present for the 10th edition of the YUMMEX Middle East 2016 trade fair held from the 7th to the 9th of November in Dubai. During the three days of the trade fair, previously known as Sweets & Snacks Middle East, more than 8,000 visitors came to the Dubai World Trade Centre Exhibition Space.
YUMMEX has become one of the major trade fairs for snacks and confectionary products in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a meeting point for all professionals, producers, and buyers who wish to acquaint themselves with the latest trends and innovations in the sector.
The Natra stand received over 70 visitors over the three days. In terms of the profile of these visitors, Igor Gomez, the Natra sales representative present at the trade fair, emphasised “the high quality and professionalism of the clients and potential clients who came to the stand this year.” In addition, Yummex has been “a great opportunity for sales and for growing more comfortable with markets in places such as Yemen, Jordan, and Sub-Saharan Africa.” These countries do not feature heavily in other European trade fairs of this type.
The products which generate the most interest were the small bars for unit sales, which have a large market in countries in the Middle East and Africa and which are distributed by means of small local businesses.
Antonio Obieta named Natra new Chairman of the Board
Antonio Obieta Vilallonga has been appointed new Non Executive Chairman of the Board of Natra, the Spanish company dedicated to chocolate products and cocoa derivatives, as reported by a relevant fact notice to the CNMV (Spanish stock market regulator).
Natra to manufacture in Canada to meet the growing demand of the American market
Listed Spanish multinational Natra, a reference in the manufacture of chocolate products and cocoa derivatives, with a specialised focus on the retail industry and other food companies, will set up production in the coming months in Ontario (Canada), to directly address its customers demand in North America.
This new project is part of Natra’s strategic plan, one of the prior objectives being to increase the company’s position in markets outside Europe, and especially in North America and Asia, following the commercial progress already made in these regions in the last two years.
The new rented production facility will be part of Natra’s consumer goods division, alongside the four existing multi-product factories in Spain, France and Belgium where the company produces chocolate bars, chocolate spreads, countlines and Belgian chocolates and specialties.
The division’s current annual production is 77 thousand tonnes of chocolate products, which the company aims to complement with an additional 12 thousand tonnes from the new Canadian plant over the next three years. After the factory adaptation process and the production start to be held in the coming months, Natra estimates the new plant to be fully operational in the first half of 2014.
Natra’s manufacturing presence in Canada will be accompanied by the opening of a new sales office in Toronto next June, which will allow the company to concentrate the consumer goods division’s production and commercial teams in the area. The company will maintain its sales office in San Diego (USA), which will resume the initial activity from its opening in 2001, ie the marketing of the industrial goods division’s cocoa derivatives.
The new project in Canada will involve an investment of 12 million euro, which Natra is to finance with 40% company equity and 60% local government grants and credit lines from Canadian banks.
According to Natra’s CEO Mikel Beitia: “In 2012, the North American market accounted for 12% of Natra’s consumer goods division’s turnover. Sales in that region rose from 13 million euro in 2011 to 29 million euro at the end of 2012, a growth of 123%. With the increased presence of Natra in North America, we estimate that the consumer goods division’s sales in this market will double again in the next three years.“
Natra sets its commitments on Corporate Social Responsibility up to 2020
Spanish listed multinational Natra, a reference in the manufacture of chocolate products and cocoa derivates, with a specialized approach to retailers and other food companies, published today on its website its commitment for 2020 on corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Further to the statement of the board of directors of Natra, approved in June last year, the company has worked in recent months on the core lines of its commitment to CSR, with special attention to five major areas: raw materials, and especially cocoa; environment protection; Natra’s team; society and healthy nutrition.
With regard to the supply of cocoa, Natra’s commitment up to 2020 will mainly focus on gradually increasing the purchase of certified cocoa until it represents 100% of the company’s consumption; promoting certification among the cocoa farmers cooperatives with whom Natra has relationships; participating in non-profit organisations that promote the protection of farmers and their families, as well as the effective organisation of the cooperatives to which they belong; and publishing information annually on the origin of the cocoa, indicating the proportion of the total that has been certified and the certification seals.
With regard to the environment, Natra’s commitment up to 2020 is to acquire 100% of the palm oil from plantations which are compatible with the survival of tropical forests; to promote the rational use of natural resources, with special emphasis on reducing energy and water consumption; to measure the carbon footprint of each of our products; to buy green energy whenever possible; to use cardboard produced via appropriate and socially-beneficial environmental management; and to promote the re-use of all waste generated.
In relation to the team, Natra’s commitment will focus on reporting on occupational health, safety and training indicators; developing, standardising and promoting conciliation and equality policies; and maintaining and improving where necessary the ratios relating to employee permanence in the company.
Natra’s commitment up to 2020 with its communities of influence provides for an increase in the collaboration with organisations working directly for the welfare of the population in countries where the company sources cocoa; the establishment of ongoing collaboration with local food banks; and the promotion of sponsorship activities related to sport and healthy living.
In relation to the promotion of healthy nutrition, Natra’s commitment up to 2020 will focus on the elimination of trans fats; the replacement of artificial aromas with 100% natural aromas; the reduction of salt content; and the complete avoidance of artificial colorants.
Above all, Natra’s CSR objectives aim to be specific and realistic. In order to guarantee progress in this area, Natra has established not only specific targets, but also the deadlines by which they are to be met. Since 2013, Natra has aimed to establish measurable objectives that allow us to fulfil our commitment to 2020 and to measure their progress year after year.
As one of the first steps, Natra has adhered to the United Nations Global Compact, an international initiative that promotes the implementation in entrepreneurial activities of ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards, environment and anti-corruption.
Natra strengthens its strategic position in Asia through the opening of a commercial office in Hong Kong
Natra opened in Hong Kong on Wednesday April 3 its new commercial office in China, to attend the Asia-Pacific markets.
The new sales office represents a firm step in Natra’s commitment of expanding its business outside Europe, particularly in the markets of North America and Asia.
Among the countries of the Asia-Pacific area, China is the first target market due to its significant growth opportunities. Chocolate consumption is now awakening in this market, especially due to the development of large foreign retail chains in the country and the increasing purchasing power of the population. It is estimated that in 2016 the middle class population in China will reach 340 million people, in a market with an annual chocolate consumption of 100 grams per person, compared to 8 kilos per person in Western Europe.
In this context, Natra considered essential to move forward in the commercial development that the company had so far in the area and establish a permanent business office. The direct presence in this market will allow Natra a better identification of business opportunities and consumer trends in terms of product categories, flavors, textures and packaging, while closer business relationships with key customers, direct management of the relations with the local distribution networks and operational improvements in the region, as for instance through potential agreements for the packaging of European-manufactured products.
Natra’s progress in the last year through the sales representative team in the area has allowed the company to be already present in the top five retail chains in China. Meanwhile, Natra’s industrial product division, responsible for the production and marketing of coca derivatives such as cocoa butter, cocoa powder and chocolate coating, has enjoyed trade relations with Japan for over 25 years, being China and Korea among its future growth markets.
In 2012, Natra’s cocoa and chocolate activity in markets outside Europe accounted for 20% of total sales, reaching 63.98 million euro, an increase of 47.5% compared to 2011. Among these markets, the Asia-Pacific countries brought together 18% of export sales, an increase of 18% over the previous year.
The economic objective of Natra’s consumer goods division for the next three years is to triple sales in China, reaching around 28 million euro by consolidating a customer base of retail chains as well as importers that have their own brands and distribution capabilities in the country.
In a first phase, Natra foresees consumer demand in Asian countries to focus on the category of Belgian and French chocolates, although the company expects to identify opportunities to gradually integrate its countlines and spreads categories.
